How to Attract Your Influencers Through Community Engagement

This is post 5 of our 6-part guide to making the most of influencers in your PR communications. Stay tuned for the final post, which will conclude our instruction for building a successful influencer program.

If you want to make an impact with influencers, take the time to find communities your message will resonate with, and actively engage with them. Once you find the communities that want what you have to offer, you’ll come across opportunities to extend your reach, attract influencers, and demonstrate your own credibility.

Here are 3 ways to find those powerhouse communities:

Social media monitoring

Take some time to dig a little deeper into conversations happening around your social network to find out whose radar you’re on, and whose you could be on. In a recent article on KissMetrics, writer Kirsten Matthew says, “By tuning in to your social media mentions and blog posts about your brand, you will find influencers and advocates you didn’t realize you had. Social media monitoring also allows you to find influencers who advocate for the genre or niche you have outlined.” For example, someone with a wide reach might be talking positively and passionately about topics and brands that align with your offerings, but not be aware of your service. This is someone you’ll want to reach out to – they’ll likely be glad you did.

Keyword research

Check your website’s analytics to see the keywords people are using by channel to find the most popular pages on your website. (If you’re using Google Analytics, go to Behaviour > Site content > All pages. Click one of the top pages, then set the secondary dimension keyword.) What search terms, long tail and otherwise, are coming up? Can you identify any patterns? Do some “competitive research” for these terms, search for them in Google to find communities that are interested in your message, and see what kind of content is written about it. When your name appears on relevant blogs, social communities and forums, and you engage in the matters those communities care about, people are more likely to click through to find out more – and refer you to others.

Hashtags research

Identify and track the hashtags that are being used in relevant conversations. You might be focusing your marketing efforts on a particular demographic or niche, but you never know who is participating in conversations around it and where star influencers might be – until you track a hashtag. Who are the “active talkers” sharing and engaging with topical content? These are the hashtags you’ll want to start using when you distribute similar content on relevant channels. Keep in mind that tweets that contain hashtags are 55% more likely to be retweeted than those that don’t. When your tweets get amplified outside your network, many new eyes fall on your content and those who are interested will engage.

Stay tuned for the final installment of our summer influencers series, which will show you how to keep your influencers engaged in order to create the ongoing, sustainable relationships that will work for you.